Zappos Makes It Pay to Quit

The online shoe retailer Zappos has an interesting option for new hires in its customer-service call center. After the first week of a four-week training program, you can take that week’s pay plus $1,000 and walk away. Yes, they will pay you $1,000 to quit.

Presumably, you will take this offer if you realize the job isn’t going to work out. It’s like getting a bonus for making a mistake.

That’s the employee perspective. Now let’s look at Zappos’ angle.

10% of new hires take the money. Giving these people a reason to self-select themselves out saves Zappos the additional three weeks of training. More important, it avoids saddling the company with people who don’t want to be there. $1,000 is nothing compared to the cost of keeping, managing, or eventually firing half-hearted employees.

Although Zappos’ system is not quite to the level of a garden where the weeds pull themselves, it seems to be a clever approach in that direction.

For more on Zappos’ pay-to-quit program, see Bill Taylor’s Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You Should Too at Harvard Business Publishing’s Web site.